HINDU COMMUNAL IDEOLOGY 5 RECONSTRUCTING HINDUISM Hindu consciousness in the form in which it can legitimately be linked with the phenomenon of communalism started developing in India towards the beginning of the nineteenth century. Before this period, as has been pointed out by many scholars. Hinduism as a distinctive homogeneous and authoritatively codified religion did not exist in India3 nor did the Hindus have a well established common social identity.6 It has been convincingly argued that in the early phase of British rule, the Orientalists and Evangelicals played an important role In constructing Hinduism as a coherent religion comprising a vast body of shared beliefs, myths, rituals and laws. This projected view of Hinduism arbitrarily attributed a monolithic unity of groups and sections of society which were actually disparate and were bound by a very vague sense of identity/ Actually it was the conditions created by the colonial rule which led to the emergence of Hindu consciousness on the basis of a reconstructed and reformed version of divergent traditional religious practices and beliefs. The very character of the regime under colonial rule created a feeling of alienation and humiliation among large sections of people living in India irrespective of their distinctive identities and produced in them an urge to define a common identity for themselves. Such an identity would be based on their sense of being different from those who ruled over them and it should give them a sense of self-respect in one way or the other.8 The economic and social changes taking place during the British rule threw up new social classes with shared interests. This was bound to generate a pressure among people belonging to these classes to redefine their traditional identity in accordance with the needs and requirements of their new historical being. The western educated middle class which included professional groups like teachers, doctors, lawyers and those working in government offices as well as traders and merchants felt a particular need for reconstructing this broader sense of identity. The homogeneous version of Hinduism projected by the orientalists was appropriated by these groups and filled with a new content to suit their specific needs and requirements. They sought to reform the inherited religious tradition in the light of the new notions of rationality, justice and progress which they had imbibed from western education and which also accorded with their own class aspirations and goals. The pressure of their class role was forcing them to get beyond the strictly local and narrow affiliations which formed an integral part of the diverse traditional identities they had acquired through religious and social practices grounded in the realities of an earlier historical period. The Brahmo Samaj can be cited as the pioneer organization which attempted to reinterpret Hinduism through a return to Upanishadic rationalism. It aimed at reforming Hindu religion and reconstructing a religious identity which